Weekly News Term 4|Week 2

A Note from The Principal

It was my pleasure to support Helen Knott and Inez Meuws at the recent Pasifica Awards at the Otago Polytechnic. Both girls are wonderful ambassadors for the school and their culture. Helen helped us all to learn a Tongan prayer response in chapel on Tuesday and we are fortunate to have our young women so ready to share and celebrate their cultures with us.

Tonight we have the Manu Pounamu Awards where our Maori students are acknowledged for their excellence. This is a very special ceremony and one where the importance of whanau, connectedness and belonging are so evident. I look forward to watching Kiriana Hunter and Sarah Langsbury receive their awards.

We look forward to sharing the celebrations of our Blues evening tonight as well (it is a busy week!!) – and are delighted that Old Girl Sophie Morris has accepted our invitation to be the guest speaker.

St HIlda’s Day will be a welcome chance to come together as a community; reflect, sit, listen and be grateful for the time to worship together. The cathedral always exudes a sense of majesty, calm and safety, a timely reminder of the importance of having all those attributes in our lives. I look forward to seeing you there.

Jackie Barron

Paid Union Meeting – Friday 9 November

School will finish at 11:50 am on Friday 9 November 2018. Staff who are PPTA and NZEI members will be attending a paid union meeting, an entitlement which is part of their Collective Agreement.

Although school will officially remain open until 3:00 pm that afternoon, there will be no formal classes operating. However, there will be supervision in the Library for students who need to stay at school until the end of the school day.

Please note: Confirmation of bus times will come shortly.

Please notify the school office if your daughter will need to remain at school on this afternoon. (Contact Karen Mowat on 477 0989 or email admin@shcs.school.nz)

Reports

This year we have made changes to how we report on your daughter’s learning to ensure that reports are appropriate, useful and timely. We were very aware that the paragraph comment based report was slow to produce, often out of date by the time you received it and did not easily allow for specific next steps. Because of this, comments were often generalised statements, with limited relevance.

The final report for the year will be a record of your daughters learning for the year. This will include a comment from her Whanaungatanga teacher which will give you an overview of her year’s learning.

Throughout the year we have communicated through Learning Conversations which allow a three-way conversation with the teacher, student and parent, Interim Reports which focussed on learning behaviours and Progress Reports which gave specific next steps for your daughters learning.

These reports when combined give an accurate and timely overview of your daughter’s learning dispositions, next steps and progress.

RSVP’s

St Hilda’s Day – Sunday 28 October, 10:00 am

It is an important time for our School Community and it is expected that all students will attend the Service on this morning. Any absences for St Hilda’s Day must be emailed to Geraldine Corkery, with a reason, care of admin@shcs.school.nz.

Guidance

As exams approach it is important for us to consider how we can support students with any exam stress they are feeling. Click here for advice from ReachOut about how you can best assist your daughter during this time.

Chapel Matters

St Hilda lived a long time ago – in the 7th Century – and was in charge of one of the most
important Abbies in England at the time. As the Abbess of Whitby, she had many
responsibilities and this included giving advice to kings and other rulers. We only have one
piece of writing from her, and with St Hilda’s Day at the Cathedral this weekend, I thought you might like to ponder on what she had to say. While the words and phrases can take some effort to read, the advice she gives is still pertinent today.

Trade with the gifts God has given you.

Bend your minds to holy learning, that you may escape the fretting moth of littleness of mind that would wear out your souls.

Brace your wills to action that they may not be the spoils of weak desires.

Train your hearts and lips to song which gives courage to the soul.

Being buffeted by trials, learn to laugh.

Being reproved, give thanks.

Having failed, determine to succeed.

– St Hilda of Whitby, 7th C

Ichikawa visit March 2019 – request for Homestay families

As you are aware each year St Hilda’s in partnership with John McGlashan hosts students from our sister school, Ichikawa Gakuen High School in Japan, for a short term visit. We are pleased to announce that Ichikawa School will be visiting us again Monday 11 – Saturday 23 March 2019.

We are looking for some lovely St Hilda’s families with a spare room to host one of the girls. Our homestay families will be supported, and a homestay meeting will be organised prior to the students’ arrival. Homestay families will be remunerated to cover any costs. Hosting an international student can be an enriching experience for the entire family.

Our intention is to confirm homestay families and match to students before Christmas.

Please get in contact as soon as possible if you are in the position to open your home for one of our Japanese short stay students. Your help would be much appreciated. If you would like to have a further conversation around what is required please also make contact.

Tolcarne News

In Term 3, as part of the Wellbeing program at Tolcarne, students explored the idea of courage, and its relation to fear and anxiety. We talked about strategies to help students cope when feeling fear and anxiety, and the satisfaction and sense of achievement that comes when they do something that is difficult or scary. We did some activities to encourage students to step out of their comfort zones, including acroyoga, blind taste testing and trust exercises.

This past week, the Year 9’s and 10’s have been doing their final challenge: Fear Factor. They participated in 5 different challenges, including a mystery box, strange food tasting, dog biscuit challenge, ice challenge and a night line. They all did extremely well and had so much fun, while stepping out of their comfort zones.

Well done, Girls!

.

Passion Project

We are planning a Passion Project week in Week 5 where students will select a topic they are interested in. They will develop an inquiry question about this topic, research it, and plan a project with a culminating presentation to share with classmates and families. Students will be assuming adult roles such as author, video game creator, piano teacher, instructional film producer, cupcake bakery entrepreneur, rocket designer, architect, sports trainer, website designer, environmental activist, and historian. Products could include short instructional videos, websites, public service campaigns, how-to books, fantasy novels, rocket and how-to presentation, models, and online video games or anything else their interest leads them to.

As part of this week, we would love to have times where adults can share some of their interests and passions. This could be to the whole group or to smaller groups in a workshop type arrangement. If you would be interested in being involved OR you know of someone who you think would be good for this, please let Mrs Judy Maw know. jmaw@shcs.school.nz

It would be fantastic for the girls to see the wide range of interests and projects that we are all still involved in as adults.

St Hilda’s Arts Building

The new building is really coming along. You can access our timelapse video by clicking on the link below.

Student Achievement

Lily Knox, year 9 has had her poem selected for a book of NZ young writers. The book is called The Jillion.

The Jillion will be a beautiful, hardcover book that will be enjoyed by readers all over New Zealand and even the world.

‘The Man with the Violin’

Sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, greying sagging skin
Wrinkled musty overcoat, twanging violin
He rests upon the crest o’ hill, peaceful to the world,
holds the bow and instrument, bony hands unfurled.
Hunched he sits, awaiting, but now, he reaches for the strings
A melancholy melody and quietly he sings.
Blotchy skin and shaky breath, through weary, wizened eyes
His crinkled face lifts to the sky, surveys the warm sunrise
The last golden ray pierces the clouds,
He listens, he sighs, he slows,
Shaking hands unlatch the case of the violin he stows
He does not rush, his aching limbs no longer in their prime
Wrinkles like cobwebs shroud his face
For he is the Master of Time

Over the holiday’s girls attended the National Finals of Under 15 Bantum Ice Hockey.

Congratulations to Breane Byck who achieved:
National Goalie Champion, tied for National Goalie Skills Champion as well as her team taking Silver Medal

University Scholarships

Massey University and Otago Polytech have not yet released their scholarship outcomes . Here is a list of those who have gained an Undergraduate Scholarship at this stage.

Town Belt Kaitiaki Photography Competition

Orders for the St Hilda’s Chronicle are being taken now!

This year’s school magazine contains over 150 pages of photos and memories from 2018. The cost is $40.

The Chronicle will be ready for your daughter to collect at the conclusion of Prize Giving on Wednesday, 5 December. Alternatively, copies can be collected from the school office or posted home.

Could you please complete the online form below or pick up an order form from the school office to order your daughter(s) copy of the Chronicle. Multiple copies may be ordered. The Chronicle will be charged to the school account.

Please note, there will be no door sales of the magazine on Prize Giving night. We are now only printing the number of magazines that are pre-ordered to avoid unnecessary wastage.